The U.S. Economy
An important aspect of economics is economic statistics, and an army of economists collects and analyzes these statistics. This chapter presents an overview of the economic activity of the United States. How much do you need to know about these statistics? It would be ridiculous to memorize them. At the same time, it would be undesirable to be ignorant of how we are changing and how we are not.[10]
[10] I apologize to those using the book in foreign countries; this chapter is about the United States not because it is more important but because I know it better. Encourage your professor to write a chapter on your country! All of the statistics in this chapter come from Fedstats, http://www.fedstats.gov/, from FRED, http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/, and from the NBER, http://www.nber.org/.
